Gravitationally induced phase shift on a single photon. (16th March 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hilweg, Christopher; Massa, Francesco; Martynov, Denis; Mavalvala, Nergis; Chruściel, Piotr T; Walther, Philip
• Is Part Of: New journal of physics. Volume 19:Number 3(2017:Mar.)
• Publication Date: 2017-03-16
• Subjects: quantum measurement -- gravity -- optical interferometry -- quantum optics; Physics -- Periodicals; Physics; Periodicals; 530.05
• DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/aa638f
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1367-2630

Abstract

Abstract: The effect of the Earth's gravitational potential on a quantum wave function has only been observed for massive particles. In this paper we present a scheme to measure a gravitationally induced phase shift on a single photon traveling in a coherent superposition along different paths of an optical fiber interferometer. To create a measurable signal for the interaction between the static gravitational potential and the wave function of the photon, we propose a variant of a conventional Mach–Zehnder interferometer. We show that the predicted relative phase difference of 10 −5 rad is measurable even in the presence of fiber noise, provided additional stabilization techniques are implemented for each arm of a large-scale fiber interferometer. Effects arising from the rotation of the Earth and the material properties of the fibers are analysed. We conclude that optical fiber interferometry is a feasible way to measure the gravitationally induced phase shift on a single-photon wave function, and thus provides a means to corroborate the equivalence of the energy of the photon and its effective gravitational mass.